The Arriva London’s Heritage Fleet helps serve up the longest lunch

It’s at this time of the year that The London Restaurant Festival celebrates the culinary delights of the city, with all manner of special events showcasing the great eateries across the capital. The festival, which runs from 1st – 31st October, is in full swing now.

To help with producing a very special dining out treat, the festival organises a wonderful adventure called The Gourmet Odyssey. This is London's most original gastronomic road trip, where the adventure gives diners their first course in one top London restaurant, their main in another and the dessert in a third - with Veuve Clicquot Champagne paired with each course, and travelling between restaurants achieved on our iconic Heritage Fleet historic Routemaster buses. The trip has also been called ‘the greatest longest lunch’.

This year, there have been three different trips, on three separate Heritage Fleet vehicles, over the three weekends of the festival, with The Manor, Noble Rot and Brunswick House Café as just some of this year's highlights.

The buses are also part of the highlight, as they represent a moving history of London with RML 901 (new to London Transport in December 1961, one of the first batch of 30-foot Routemasters coded RML - with the L standing for Long or Lengthened), RM 1124 (introduced in 1962 to replace Trolleybuses, restored in late 2009 / early 2010), and RM 2217 (London's last production standard Routemaster which operated London’s last Routemaster journey on route 159).

We have had the pleasure of supplying our Heritage Fleet buses to the London Restaurant Festival for the past few years, and would like to take this opportunity to thank them for this privilege and to wish them every success both now and in the future.